


til human voices wake us

by spoonsoftea



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Crowley Has A Vulva (Good Omens), Idiots in Love, New Relationship, Oral Sex, Post-Canon, gratuitous mentions of TS Eliot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-16
Updated: 2019-09-16
Packaged: 2020-10-19 14:26:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20658725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spoonsoftea/pseuds/spoonsoftea
Summary: “Don’t,” says Crowley, threateningly. “It was one text. And only because I know you’re rubbish with names. You should be embarrassed.”“Oh, I am,” Aziraphale assures him, radiating satisfaction and blatantly lying. “You have utterly shamed me, my dear.”Crowley scowls, reflecting that it is, after all, difficult to appear menacing when one is holding hands./In which Crowley attends a birthday party, puts up with poetry, and has some unasked questions answered.





	til human voices wake us

**Author's Note:**

> i wanted aziraphale giving crowley head, and wrote a whole fic to justify it. also, there is much quoting of [the love song of j alfred prufrock](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/44212/the-love-song-of-j-alfred-prufrock). apologies in advance. title from the same poem.

Crowley slouches into the bookshop on a Saturday afternoon, the Bentley parked in its usual spot out front. Aziraphale, standing at a bookshelf and making careful notes in his inventory, hears the bell tinkle and looks over, pleasure brightening his face. He is tucked into his cream cardigan and wears his round reading glasses perched on the end of his nose.

“Oh, hello,” he says, smiling, and Crowley ambles over to kiss his cheek. “You’re a bit early.”

“Thought we could take the long way.” Crowley shrugs. “It’s clearing up. Nice day for a drive.”

Aziraphale gives him a smile so soft Crowley can feel an answering one threatening a corner of his mouth. “What a lovely idea,” Aziraphale agrees. “I’ll just close up, and we can be off.”

The open relish in his voice at the prospect of being able to close for the day is no less delightful for its predictability. Crowley is willing to bet a not-insignificant number of his sunglasses that the reason Aziraphale opened at all was for the ready-made excuse of being able to close early and, in all likelihood, for the rest of the weekend, because he is a bit of a bastard.

Crowley flips the ‘open’ sign to ‘closed’ while Aziraphale collects his coat and, apparently, a brown paper bag. “What’s that?”

“Hmm? Oh, sparkling wine. Champagne. A Billecart-Salmon Brut Reserve, to be precise. Non-vintage, I’m afraid, but quite serviceable.” At Crowley’s raised eyebrow, he adds, “We can’t show up empty-handed, Crowley.”

“We can not show up at all,” Crowley suggests, mostly for the show of it. He agreed to go without much of a fuss when the invite first arrived, and feels a bit like he ought to have grumbled more about it. But he’d overheard Aziraphale chattering to Anathema on the phone about how pleased they would be to attend, as if he and Crowley were a single unit that required one response, and he hadn’t been able to muster up even a token protest. 

Aziraphale _tsk_s at him as they cross the street. “I think it’s very kind of them to think of us.”

“Bah,” says Crowley, which Aziraphale seems to know is the closest he’ll come to agreeing, since he slides past the car door Crowley is holding open for him with a small, pleased smile. 

They don’t talk much until they make it out of London, because Crowley pushes ninety miles an hour just to be contrary and Aziraphale focuses on gripping the door handle in white-knuckled terror, but once they leave the city Crowley nudges the speedometer needle down a bit, and Aziraphale relaxes. In fact, Aziraphale relaxes so much that he puts a hand, warm and heavy, on Crowley’s thigh.

He swallows convulsively, and Aziraphale must notice, because his gaze flickers over. “All right?” he asks softly.

It takes a moment for Crowley to locate his tongue. “Fine,” he says, once he’s found it. “Good.”

Why a hand on his leg should fluster him more than the frankly excellent shag they’d had not two days earlier was a question, Crowley glowers to himself, for Hell.

“I don’t suppose you ever thought you’d come back to Tadfield,” says Aziraphale conversationally, pulling Crowley out of his internal griping. “After that first time, I mean.”

“I didn’t,” Crowley says. “Especially not for social calls. Not a bad change of pace, though. Beats delivering the Antichrist, anyway. Or arriving on fire.”

Aziraphale hums in agreement. “It was quite a dashing entrance, though. On the airfield.”

“Was it?” asks Crowley, pleased, as if he hadn’t intended to look as devastatingly cool as possible. It’s nice to have one’s efforts recognized.

“Oh, yes.” Aziraphale nods eagerly. “I was stuck sharing that human body, you know, with Madame Tracy, and towing along Sergeant Shadwell, and there was that American with the gun not letting us in, and it was all getting _quite_ frustrating – and you pulled up, gloriously ablaze, and complimented my dress.”

It still hurts, a bit, to think about the Bentley in flames, and the effort of keeping the whole thing together and functional after driving through the M-25 had given him a wretched headache, but all of that is inconsequential in the face of Aziraphale’s open admiration.

Crowley flirts back, because he can. “Meant it. It did suit you.”

Aziraphale laughs. “It’s more your style than mine, dear. Though the dress _was _very comfortable.”

“Nanny Ashtoreth did have excellent clothes,” Crowley remembers. “Think that was the last time I wore a skirt, in fact.”

“You should try one again, if you want to,” Aziraphale says. “I was very fond of that outfit.”

“Were you?” asks Crowley, surprised. “You never said.”

“Oh, yes.” Aziraphale is matter-of-fact. “I thought you looked very fetching.”

Crowley files this away for later. He might still have that lipstick stashed away somewhere, come to think of it. “Maybe I will,” he says aloud. “I always liked a good skirt.”

“They do have a number of advantages,” Aziraphale agrees, probably thinking of the simple sizing and airy breeze they afford.

“Easier access,” Crowley grins, waggling his brows.

Just like that, Aziraphale goes pink, and says, “Oh, come now,” but he’s smiling.

Crowley reaches down, lifts the angel’s hand from his thigh, and presses the back of it to his lips. He hears a quiet but sharp intake of air from Aziraphale, and resists the urge to turn his hand over and kiss the inside of his wrist. Such a thing would almost certainly lead to others like it, which would probably also lead to them wrapped around a tree.

He does lace their fingers together when he lowers Aziraphale’s hand. They sit together in a moment of silence that is, to Crowley’s mind, equal parts uncomfortably intimate and utterly delicious.

“You know,” says Aziraphale eventually, breaking the spell, “I don’t think I actually know the name of Miss Anathema’s boyfriend. Do you?”

“Whose boyfriend?” asks Crowley, for the heck of it, and Aziraphale uses his free hand to flick him in the ear. “_Ow_, angel.”

“Hush.” Aziraphale shakes his head – fondly, Crowley thinks. “Anathema, you know. The one whom you hit –”

“– who hit me –”

“With your car,” Aziraphale speaks over him. “Who had the _Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter_, which you so kindly rescued from my bookshop.”

Crowley groans. “Yes, alright –”

“Dark hair, remember, with that lovely long coat – and a charming velocipede…”

“_Bicycle_.”

“Found the Antichrist long before we did, even if she didn’t entirely know it.”

“_Angel._”

“Who ended up saving the world with us, after a fashion – alongside her boyfriend, whose name, as I said, I cannot recall,” Aziraphale says smugly, and Crowley wants to kiss him.

In lieu of this, he says, “Newton.”

“Sorry?”

“It’s Newton. Book girl's boyfriend.”

Aziraphale beams at him with a touch too much knowingness. “_Is _it.”

“Don’t,” says Crowley, threateningly. “It was one text. And only because I know you’re rubbish with names. You should be embarrassed.”

“Oh, I am,” Aziraphale assures him, radiating satisfaction and blatantly lying. “You have utterly shamed me, my dear.”

Crowley scowls, reflecting that it is, after all, difficult to appear menacing when one is holding hands.

/

They can hear the sounds of revelry from the street, once Crowley parks the Bentley (illegally) and the hum of the engine cuts off. He stares at the small cottage, vaguely remembering the low brick wall, while Aziraphale reaches behind the seat for the champagne.

“It’ll be fun,” says Aziraphale brightly, climbing out of the car.

“Your version of fun, or mine?” says Crowley, but he adjusts his sunglasses before sticking his hands in his pockets and sauntering after Aziraphale.

The door is opened by a young boy with floppy hair and enormous eyes. He stares at the two of them, then turns his head and shouts, “Anathema!”

The witch appears a moment later, shouts and laughter spilling out of the rooms behind her, looking a bit flustered but pleased. “You’re here! I wasn’t sure you’d come.”

“Of course,” says Aziraphale jovially. “Wouldn’t miss it. Happy birthday, my dear.” Crowley, standing at his shoulder with his hip cocked, nods.

“Thank you,” Anathema replies, stepping aside to let them in. “Come in, everyone’s inside.”

They step over the threshold, shoes efficiently divesting themselves of any mess – only, Crowley knows, because Aziraphale believes no respectable house guest would track mud indoors. Aziraphale removes his coat, under which he is wearing his cardigan; Crowley keeps his sunglasses on.

A tall, dark-haired man in spectacles stumbles out of what is likely the sitting room. Crowley lurches past Aziraphale to offer his hand. “Nathan, was it?”

“Erm, Newton,” he says, very awkwardly.

Aziraphale digs his elbow into Crowley’s side, but it’s absolutely worth it.

“Lovely to see you again,” the angel says, a hint of celestial-grade soothing in his tone as he offers the paper bag. “This is for the both of you.”

“Oh, thanks,” says Newton, while Anathema protests that they shouldn’t have.

“Don’t mention it,” says Crowley, looking past them. “Who’ve we got, then?”

They’ve got Adam, the erstwhile Antichrist; his three friends, including the girl Crowley likes purely for having witnessed her curse at, and subsequently stab, the literal embodiment of War; Adam’s father and presumably mother, who are painfully normal; some other humans who are probably parents; and the uptight man who gave Crowley directions to the airbase on his way to avert Armageddon.

Not a bad crowd.

Aziraphale gives a small wave. “Hello,” he says, with a smile that puts everyone at ease.

“Hi,” says Adam, looking between them.

“Oh, have you met Adam?” asks his mother, standing for the introduction. “Deidre Young.”

“Ah, yes,” replies Aziraphale. “That is, we visited Anathema not too long ago and had the pleasure of meeting him. Aziraphale.”

“Pardon?”

Crowley coughs a laugh. “Aziraphale. It’s an old family name,” he says, reaching out a hand. “Anthony Crowley.”

They make the rounds; Mr. Young does not appear to remember them at all, and fortunately, Anathema steps in when they’re asked how they know her. “Aziraphale and Crowley are old family friends,” she says, shooting them a look. “We ran into each other a month or two ago and reconnected.”

Crowley smirks. “She ran into us, really. Smashing encounter.”

“Yes, well,” Aziraphale says hurriedly, side-eyeing Crowley as Anathema draws herself up indignantly. “It’s always a pleasure to visit Tadfield. Charming village you have here.”

The humans seem to take great pride in this, which is not of any interest to Crowley. He ignores the conversation and addresses Adam. “Where’s the dog?”

Adam brightens. “Outside in the garden. He can do all sorts of tricks now, do you want to see?”

“Yeah, alright,” says Crowley, and abandons Aziraphale to the less interesting company to follow Adam outside, where he can hopefully persuade the children to teach the dog some more interesting skills.

It turns out that most of excitement they’d heard from the street had come from the four young ones, who tell him of the complicated game they’ve devised which Crowley has no hope of understanding. He shows them how to train Dog to steal from the neighbour’s garden, and segues into a discussion about tricks they could learn on their bicycles, which will hopefully lead to some minor injuries and cause their parents no small amount of anxiety.

The sun peeks intermittently through the clouds. Newt wanders outside and contributes ideas to the game, the canon of which somehow involves both cardboard pirate swords and imaginary jet packs. Crowley sprawls out on a bench, watching and soaking up the sun.

Eventually, Aziraphale brings him a glass of red wine, fingers brushing his, and nudges his knee over so he can sit next to him. Crowley tips his head back and breathes in the late autumn air. It’s not so different from all those times they met at St. James’ Park, really, just he and Aziraphale sitting on a bench and talking. Except that it’s completely different, because of the wine, and the easy conversation with no background noise of _yours or mine_, and most of all because of the warmth of Aziraphale’s knee against his, even though they are neither fucking nor about to fuck – as though Aziraphale wants to touch him simply because he likes to, and for no reason other than that.

When Anathema comes out to tell them the food’s on its way (and it’s a relief to find he won’t be subjected to anyone’s home cooking), Crowley heaves himself up and follows Aziraphale back into the quiet cottage.

“I thought we’d eat outside,” says Anathema. She points. “I’ve put out some more wine. We’ll save the champagne for later, I think.” Her voice drops conspiratorially. “Newton’s made a cake, but I’m not supposed to know about it, I don’t think.”

“We won’t breathe a word,” Aziraphale promises, patting Crowley’s upper arm. “Wine, dear?”

“Obviously,” says Crowley, who has been refilling his glass surreptitiously for the past half-hour.

Mr. Tyler comes bustling into the kitchen carrying empty dishes. “So,” he says, chest puffed out, “from London, are you? Not much for the city, myself. Worked there for a bit, but the commute was rubbish. The bloody M-25, of course.”

“Of _course_,” says Crowley, with great delight, and Aziraphale groans next to him.

/

The party is really a very good one.

The takeaway and champagne are both tasty, and so is the cake, which Newton carries proudly through the back garden, leading the singing of ‘Happy Birthday’, to a convincingly surprised Anathema. (Crowley had seen Aziraphale poking about the fridge shortly before the cake’s unveiling, however, so the tastiness isn’t a huge surprise.) He and Aziraphale drink their way through several bottles of wine and argue, in turns, about Bach’s secular cantatas, which they both love, and _Golden Girls_, which Aziraphale has watched once, thirty years ago, at Crowley’s flat and under extreme duress.

“How long have you been together?”

Crowley pauses in his pursuit of Aziraphale’s maraschino cherries. “Sorry?” 

The woman on his right – possibly Pepper’s mother, though he can’t be sure – indicates Aziraphale, who is talking and gesturing animatedly to an entranced audience of two of Adam’s friends. There is a tiny spot of icing at the corner of his mouth. Crowley feels something warm and tender bloom in his chest.

He’s also very drunk, so he drawls, “Beginning of time, feels like.”

“Lovely,” replies the woman, followed by: “Oh! Can he do magic, then?”

“Oh, fuck,” says Crowley, and bolts out of his seat.

/

“But you _have _to stay,” Anathema says later, sometime around midnight. “You can’t drive back to London now, not in this state.”

‘This state,’ as it happens, is perfectly sober, because Crowley is a reckless driver but he’s not actually homicidal. Anathema, of course, cannot be expected to know that he and Aziraphale have already purged the alcohol from their systems, but Crowley is irritated about it anyway.

“Well,” sighs Aziraphale, “I suppose that’s true. You’re sure we won’t put you out, my dear?”

“There’s a guest bedroom upstairs,” says Anathema firmly, and installs them within it with a stack of clean towels and two of Newt’s slightly ratty t-shirts. One of them proclaims MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU; the other asks HAVE YOU TRIED EXPLAINING IT TO A RUBBER DUCK?, complete with a yellow approximation of their dependants at St. James’s.

“Can I,” says Crowley, holding up one of these between his pinched thumb and forefinger, “burn this with actual, literal hellfire?”

Aziraphale tries to cover his laugh with a disapproving look. “Do you want to sleep?”

“God, no. Not _here_.”

They sneak out to the back garden with another bottle of wine once they’re sure the coast is clear. The moon is high and bright, and the small village is very quiet. Crowley lounges out on the bench, one arm stretched along the back of it. Aziraphale sits next to him, the barest suggestion of a slouch in his posture. If he wanted to, Crowley could touch the soft curls at the back of Aziraphale’s head.

Instead, he takes a swig of wine and passes the bottle over. They are having a very old but lively debate about Modernist poetry that has been ongoing for at least sixty years.

“I don’t care,” Crowley is saying, gesturing impatiently for the wine back. “Eliot was a prick, and I’ll not apologize for it.”

Aziraphale has the pinched look he gets when he’s trying not to speak ill of the Almighty’s creation. “Well, I don’t know about that, but –”

“You do,” says Crowley. “Come on, he was a complete wanker – just because Ezra thought the sun shone out of his arse doesn’t mean he was any good.”

“I won’t pretend his character wasn’t a bit _dubious _– the way he treated poor Vivienne…”

Crowley snorts. “Maybe, but she was a piece of work, herself. Even Virginia thought so, if I remember right.”

“Ah,” says Aziraphale wistfully, taking another swallow of wine. “Now, there was a talent. Such a pity, how it ended. Dreadfully unhappy woman.”

“And look at what she produced!” Crowley finally succeeds in taking the bottle back. “Eliot barely wrote anything, when you think about it – just a critically-acclaimed volume or two at the start and sailed on one or two poems a year for the rest of his life.”

“Productivity is not the only measure of influence,” Aziraphale sniffs. “You’re just cross because you never understood _The Waste Land_.”

“Incomprehensible nonsense,” Crowley returns, tipping his head back to look up at the stars.

“_You _told Hell Modernism was your idea,” Aziraphale reminds him. “And anyway, you cannot seriously tell me –”

Lifting his head, Crowley snatches the wine back. “If you’re about to rhapsodize about _Prufrock _again, angel, I swear…”

Aziraphale slips into what Crowley can only assume is a sullen silence, and says nothing, which Crowley takes as confirmation.

So it comes as a shock when a warm hand slides over his thigh, high and heavy, curling inwards. “Do you know,” says Aziraphale, “I do find my interest in that particular poem has waned a bit, recently. Would you like to know why?”

“No particularly,” Crowley manages, because Aziraphale is leaning closer, hand moving with clear intent. They’ve only been sleeping together for a few months, after all; Crowley cannot be expected to have become used to it quite so soon. Not after so many centuries of wanting.

“It has nothing to do with my feelings about Modernism,” Aziraphale says, voice low and gentle. “In fact, if you were to really break it down, what is Modernism but a re-examining? A deconstruction and re-shaping of our reality. Quite fitting, really.” His lips ghost over Crowley’s ear, breath warm. “Eliot was very fond of tradition, you know, the relation of one’s art to others.”

“Could you – could you shut up about Eliot?” Crowley inhales sharply as Aziraphale’s teeth graze over his neck.

He can feel the smile against his skin. “But I intend to make a work of art of you, my darling. And in true Modernist form, I should like to make reference to another.”

This, Crowley thinks hazily, is new. “Which is?”

“I believe,” says Aziraphale softly, kissing his neck, “that we discussed it in the car.”

It takes several seconds for Crowley to dig through the fog of arousal and dredge up the memory. “Oh,” he breathes, and waves a hand.

“Very good,” whispers Aziraphale, and Crowley strangles the neck of the wine bottle as the angel’s hand slides up his newly-bare thigh and under the skirt Crowley is now wearing.

It’s a bit different than the last one – dark, yes, but knee-length, and draping luxuriously down from the high waist. He’s kept the shirt he was wearing but removed the jeans, wonders briefly if he ought to have gone for the heels, too, instead of the snakeskin boots he likes. But then Aziraphale slides to knees, there in the garden, as if he doesn’t even care about the potential for grass stains to his trousers, and Crowley stops analysing his sartorial choices.

When one thumb grazes the juncture of his thighs, Aziraphale looks up. “I wonder, would you mind something else tonight? I had something rather specific in mind.”

“Not at all,” Crowley grits out, and makes a bit of an effort.

Aziraphale’s eyes gleam. One hand slips to the back of Crowley’s knee, hitches him down slightly so that Aziraphale can trail lips and tongue along the sensitive skin of his inner thighs, pushing the skirt higher. “As I was saying,” he begins, “and, forgive me – but you know how much I loved that poem. I don’t know if I ever told you why?”

“No, thank Satan,” says Crowley, and Aziraphale bites him lightly but sharply.

“The thing is,” he says, moving further beneath Crowley’s skirt, “I’m afraid I did rather relate to the poor man.” And, against the damp heat of Crowley’s cunt, he murmurs lowly, “_Deferential, glad to be of use, / Politic, cautious, and meticulous; / Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse; / At times, indeed, almost ridiculous— / Almost, at times, the Fool._”

Crowley is rapidly losing the ability to follow conversation, so intent is he on the soft, teasing touches Aziraphale begins to place on the skin around his cunt, which is beginning to throb. “Why –?”

Aziraphale shushes him, continuing to lick and nip at the feverish skin before him. “_Oh, do not ask, ‘What is it?’/ Let us go and make our visit_.”

Crowley hisses at a particularly sensitive spot, which is a bit embarrassing,

Aziraphale shifts, inching his knees closer to the bench. “I do, however,” he says, trailing featherlight kisses, “find myself sympathizing a bit less with Prufrock, these days.”

Crowley finally begins to grasp that something about this is important, and also – crucially – that paying attention may lead to him getting fucked. “Oh?" he mumbles.

“He struggles a bit, you see,” Aziraphale explains, scratching lightly with his perfectly-manicured nails. “Which I understood, for a long time.” And then, after licking a long line up one leg to Crowley’s dripping core, whispers, “_But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,_ / _Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter, _/ _I am no prophet — and here’s no great matter; / I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker, / And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, / And in short, I was afraid.”_

Something fractures a bit in Crowley’s chest. “Aziraphale…”

“You understand, don’t you?” Aziraphale asks, so softly Crowley must strain to hear him. “How similar we were, Prufrock and I.”

Crowley anchors one hand in Aziraphale’s curls. “No, you’re not, you’re…”

“Oh, but we were,” Aziraphale says, and brings one hand up to trace the outer edge of Crowley’s cunt. A deep ache takes up residence in his centre, begins to emanate outward. “_In a minute there is time / For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse._”

“Nngh,” says Crowley, because Aziraphale has spread him apart.

“_Do I dare disturb the universe?_” the angel whispers, and slides his tongue deep inside.

Crowley arches off the bench, swearing, his elbow slipping off the back and his fingers clenching Aziraphale’s hair. “_Fuck_, angel, oh, yes, _yesss_…”

Steady hands hoist Crowley’s legs over Aziraphale’s shoulders, pull him closer as the angel buries his face in Crowley’s cunt and begins to fuck him in earnest, tongue thrusting in and out, licking up the centre of him, flicking against him. His fingers press deeply into the flesh of his thighs, and Crowley pants and moans with utter abandon, pleasure building unbearably in his core. “Oh, fuck – oh, yesss, Aziraphale –”

The tongue inside him is hot and wet and relentless; Aziraphale gives him no respite, works steadily and feverishly, as if Crowley is the most delicious thing he’s ever tasted, as if there is nothing more he wants to do with his lips and tongue than bring Crowley steadily towards a peak that feels like it will shatter him into pieces.

His heels dig into Aziraphale’s back without conscious thought, heat unspooling in the pit of his stomach while increasing tension winds him taut. Crowley pulls the hem of his skirt higher so he can watch, can witness the way Aziraphale presses ever closer between Crowley’s thighs, can catch a flash of tongue licking at him before it disappears back inside him. It sounds wet, obscene. Pleasure spikes inward from every inch of his body, bolting down his spine to his core with an intensity that’s almost painful, gathering him tighter and tighter. Something desperate is building in his chest, too, a big and ballooning feeling that begs for a voice.

He wants to touch more of Aziraphale but also wants nothing to change, cannot fathom doing anything that might interrupt the overwhelming rhythm of Aziraphale’s tongue inside him. This seems so pressing that he finds himself gasping, “Keep doing – fuck, angel, keep doing that, just stay right – just stay here, stay – please, stay here,” until he can’t remember what he’s asking, only knows that it is absolutely imperative that Aziraphale hear these words, torn from Crowley’s throat without thought.

Aziraphale surfaces and looks up at him, his eyes impossibly huge, the whole of the star-studded night sky reflected in them. His face is bracketed on both sides by Crowley’s thighs. “I’m here, my love,” he whispers, not looking away. “I’m staying.”

Crowley looks down at him, heart pounding within his heaving chest, and can think of no answer. This is apparently not a problem, because Aziraphale shortly thereafter reapplies his mouth to the task of discorporating him. But one hand abandons its purchase in white-blonde curls and fumbles, searching, until Aziraphale reaches for him and holds on tight.

And then that hot and determined tongue is tormenting him again, tracing the outside edges of his opening, flicking against him, plunging deep within him. It feels like both an eternity and no time at all before the pleasure builds to a point he can longer endure, and he is grasping frantically at Aziraphale and babbling, “Aziraphale, I’m – I’m – I’m going to – don’t – don’t stop, _angel –_”

And he comes, explosively, and possibly passes out.

/

Gradually, Crowley becomes vaguely aware of something heavy resting on his knee.

Prying his eyes open with great effort, Crowley is greeted by the sight of Aziraphale, awash in moonlight, kneeling between his legs and leaning against him. “Aziraphale?” Crowley croaks.

The angel looks up. Moisture glistens on his lips, his cheeks, his chin, and Crowley realizes with a start that Aziraphale has just finished bringing himself off. “Terribly sorry,” says Aziraphale incomprehensibly, wiping his mouth with the back of one hand and tucking himself away with the other. “I was feeling a bit urgent.”

“Get up here,” Crowley rasps, and tries to haul the angel into his lap. Aziraphale does most of the work, but when he is settled he tips their foreheads together and touches his lips to Crowley’s. The kiss is slow, deep, and agonizingly tender. Crowley clutches the back of Aziraphale’s cardigan and presses him forward.

After the kiss ends, they are silent for several long moments.

“I cannot believe,” says Crowley, at length, “that you just got me off to T.S. Eliot. And _Modernism._”

Aziraphale gives a peal of laughter. “Forgive me. I couldn’t resist.”

“S’pose I will,” mutters Crowley, holding him more tightly. “Wasn’t terrible. The Modernism was a bit of a stretch, though.”

Aziraphale makes a face. “It was, I know. But I couldn’t very well say I wanted _easier access._”

“You absolutely could have,” Crowley says, though the idea of it makes him snicker.

Aziraphale pokes him. “Yes, well. It was never my favourite literary movement, to be honest.” He shrugs, then nestles further into Crowley’s chest. “You can let go of that, by the way.”

“Hmm?” Crowley is embarrassed to find that he is still holding onto the wine bottle. A significant amount has sloshed out. His fingers are cramped around the neck, and he has to peel them loose one by one. “Right.” While he’s at it, he does a bit of miraculous tidying for both of them and smooths his skirt back down. Aziraphale tilts his head and kisses him – not the kind of kiss that’s supposed to lead to more, but the kind that is a full sentence on its own, the kind that asks nothing further. The kind of kiss that is given because it can be.

Crowley clears his throat. “That was, uh. Good.”

“Do you know, I did get the sense that you enjoyed it.” Aziraphale’s tone is lightly teasing, a bit self-satisfied. “I’m glad.”

“And you don’t need me to –?” He gestures vaguely.

“Goodness, no.” Aziraphale shrugs, a bit pink. “It, ah, didn’t take much.”

“Really?”

Aziraphale is definitely blushing. “You were very motivating.” Crowley grins at him, so he adds primly, “And loud. Frankly surprised you didn’t wake up half the neighbourhood.”

“Oh, I hope so,” says Crowley. “Especially Anathema. Serves her right for bullying us into staying.”

“But she offered us such lovely sleepwear,” Aziraphale protests, lips twitching.

“Poor Nathan’ll be missing his best shirts,” Crowley says, and they both burst into laughter.

The moon has slipped a bit lower, and the cool night air flows over them. It tastes like the crispness of autumn, and the sweet, gentle flavour of unspoken questions answered.

Yawning, Aziraphale stretches. “Come on, dear heart. Let’s go to bed."

Crowley has been urged to his feet and shepherded toward the house before he can find the right words. “Listen, angel…” He licks his lips, tries to remember, and says, “It would have been worth it, after all. It always was.”

Something melts in Aziraphale’s eyes, but to Crowley’s relief, he says nothing, only smiling in that soft, tender way of his, and taking Crowley’s hand as they steal in through the back door.

**Author's Note:**

> bit late to the fandom but already in too deep. please send help
> 
> comments are most welcome


End file.
